In the concurrently-run Lightweight session, Ian Lougher - who has topped the leaderboard for the first two qualifying sessions - was reported as a retirement at Braddan Bridge on his opening lap on the LayLaw Yamaha while Dan Cooper was also a retirement at Ballacraine.

However, there was no such misfortune for Anstey, who was able to complete his first lap of the meeting at 113.776mph - just over a second off Ian Lougher's fastest qualifying time to date for the class set in the previous evening's session. Anstey followed this up with a second lap of 113.571mph.

With a number of competitors in both the Superbike and Lightweight classes still circulating a red flag incident at Creg-ny-Baa curtailed the session and after a short delay, the bikes that remained on the course returned under yellow flags and were short-lapped.

This meant that the second session, for Senior and Junior Classic TT machines, was delayed by over 20 minutes before the session finally got underway just before 7.40pm. Morecambe based duo John McGuinness and Alan Oversby had already set off on the Winfield Paton and Davies Motorsport Honda respectively before completing laps under waved yellow flags.

Dean Harrison was an early retirement on the Black Eagle Racing MV in the Junior session at Ballacraine while Oversby also returned shortly after setting off on his second attempt at a competitive lap.

McGuinness also retired on his second lap but the Team Winfield Paton mantle was picked up by his team-mate Conor Cummins, who posted the fastest time of the session with 107.199mph while Maria Costello, also riding a Paton, was second fastest on the night at 105.044mph.

Michael Dunlop's first completed lap on the Black Eagle Racing MV Agusta topped the qualifying leaderboard for the Junior class, beating Rutter's time from the previous evening.

Jamie Coward (101.640mph) riding the Ted Woof Honda and William Dunlop (100.977mph) on the Davies Motorsport Honda were also both inside Rutter's previous fastest time for the class.

Ben Wylie was reported as off but unhurt at Laurel Bank in the Superbike session while Tom Snow was also uninjured after coming off at the Nook.